Motilal Oswal Private Wealth plans to grow AUM nearly 3 times in 4 yrs

New Delhi: Motilal Oswal Private Wealth is looking to grow its assets under management by almost three times to Rs 1 lakh crore over the next four years as it plans to focus on adding new clients through geographical expansion, its top official said on Sunday.

The 15-year-old company manages assets worth Rs 35,000 crore, at present.

The company was managing assets of over Rs 4,000 crore in 2014-15, reaching the Rs 10,000-crore mark in 2016-17, Rs 25,000 crore milestone in 2020-21, and over Rs 34,000 crore in the succeeding financial year.

"We currently manage Rs 35,000 crore of wealth assets and target to be at Rs 1 lakh crore by the year 2026," Ashish Shanker, the MD and CEO of Motilal Oswal Private Wealth, told PTI.

Motilal Oswal Private Wealth, part of Motilal Ostwal Group, is an integrated financial institution and offers a range of services such as real estate advisory, investment banking, institutional equities, broking and alternate opportunities to its clients.

It manages the wealth needs of nearly 5,000 high networth individuals (HNI) -- having investible assets of USD 1 million -- families through its strong team present across 10 cities.

Shanker said the company is excited about the size of the opportunity in the wealth management space as wealth in the country is expected to grow quite substantially over the next 3-5 years.

To cash in on growing opportunities in the wealth management space, the company is looking to add more relationship managers as well as locations to its kitty.

"We are currently present in 11 locations and believe we can double this. Similarly, we have 150 relationship managers and believe this can go to 250 over the next 18-24 months," Shankar said.

Another large opportunity is to work with NRIs in offshore locations such as Dubai and Singapore and help them allocate capital to India, he said.

The wealth management space in India is gaining steam as an increasing number of Indians are joining the millionaires club.

According to a report by Knight Frank, the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNIs) --having net assets of USD 30 million (about Rs 226 crore) or more -- in India increased 11 per cent to 13,637 in 2021 from 12,287 in the previous year on the back of buoyant equity markets and the digital revolution.

India has been ranked third in the billionaire population globally in 2021. The US is number one with 748 billionaires, followed by the Chinese mainland at 554 billionaires and India with 145 billionaires, as per the report.

The company's chief said that there are three pillars of growth in this business -- clients, relationship managers and the product or advisory platform -- and it will continue to focus on "adding new clients through geographical expansion as well as addition of new relationship managers and continue to strengthen our product platform to bring the best solutions to our clients".

Shankar believes that currently the wealth management business is fragmented between banks, non-bank wealth institutions, boutiques and IFAs (independent financial advisors).

According to him, the organised HNI wealth management market is at around Rs 20-25 lakh crore. However, the size of the opportunity is large and he believes this market will grow at about 30 per cent per annum over this decade.